Experts weigh pros and cons in transition

In yet another effort to save tax dollars and fill holes in the state budget, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and his health care advisers will streamline the state’s Medicaid system by altering the availability to care plans and condensing care regions.

There are currently 38 health plans and 10 regions in the state of Ohio, which provide services to more than 1.6 million Ohioans each year. When changes in the system are implemented January 1, 2013, the availability will condense to five statewide plans and only three geographic regions, according to a press release from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS).

The change is billed by Kasich's office as a way to simplify the way it offers coverage, eventually making a more sustainable, efficiently run program, which will supposedly trump the short-term inconveniences caused by the switch.

According to The Enquirer,
Medicaid costs the state of Ohio around $4.8 billion each year — nearly
one fifth of the state’s budget. Those costs continue to grow. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the new plan will also mandate higher care standards and offer financial incentives to doctors, hospitals and other providers to help improve care quality and patient health.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the loss of business marks a blow for those providers, who have benefited from covering "dual-eligible" patients — those eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid services. WSJ reports that dual-eligible patients are seen as a $300 billion opportunity for managed care firms. Because Ohio is pushing to start better coordinating care for dual-eligible patients, dropped insurers will likely lose a piece of that pie.

Streamlining the selection of managed care organizations available should help, in turn, streamline processes for dual-eligible patients, who often encounter difficultly in coordinating coverage with both Medicaid and Medicare services, says Jim Ashmore, performance improvement section chief for Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services (HCJFS).

ODJFS reports that the new providers were selected using a fair, through and open application process that was “based on applicants’ past performance in coordinating care and providing high-quality health outcomes.” Although the changes are generally perceived as a positive move forward, service providers, including doctors and health centers, acknowledge that the disruption in services could cause serious confusion when recipients are forced to find new providers and obtain new Medicaid cards. In Kentucky, the three private managed care companies
which provided Medicaid services to more than 500,000 patients have
received an influx of care-related complaints, including inefficiency in
authorizing services and payment issues.

Ashmore challenges the notion that the transition will be a bumpy one, noting patients have little to worry about: When the transition is made, everyone will likely receive an enrollment package in the mail that will outline steps to switch over new care providers.

Someone divided $1.5 million by 30

Most Cincinnatians don’t view TheCincinnati Enquirer as a beacon of journalistic innovation, but
today’s homepage headline pointing out that streetcar construction is
costing the city an average of $50,000 a day was a reminder of how
interested our Sole Surviving Daily is in drumming up negativity about the project.

Hundreds of streetcar supporters packed the Mercantile
Library last night outlining the several different ways they plan to campaign
to save the project — including various forms of litigation The Enquirer typically enjoys playing up
as potentially costly to taxpayers — a story similar in concept to the
anti-streetcar protests The Enquirer gave attention to leading up to the election.

The Enquirer’s cursory wrap-up of the
event was removed from the cincinnati.com homepage this morning, and it's currently not even listed on the site's News page even though it was published more recently than several stories that are. Left behind on the homepage is a real joke
of analysis: the fact that the $1.5 million monthly construction cost divided
by 30 days in a month amounts to $50,000 per day, assuming workers put in the
same amount of time every day in a month and the city gets billed that way,
which it doesn’t.

The $1.5 million figure has been known for weeks, but $50,000 per day
sounds dramatic enough that concerned taxpayers everywhere can repeat it to other ill-informed people at the water cooler. If these math whizzes wanted to really piss people off they would have broken it all the way down to $34.70 per minute, 24 hours a day. Man, fuck that streetcar!

At least the story’s third paragraph offered a piece of
recent news: Halting construction will still cost the city $500,000 per month because it will be on the hook for workers who
can’t be transferred and costs of rental equipment that will just sit there.
(For Enquirer-esque context: It will
still cost $16,667 per day or $11.57 a minute to temporarily halt the project.)

Also, the note in the headline (“Streetcar, which Cranley
plans to cancel, still costing $50K a day”) reminding everyone that Cranley
plans to cancel the project that is currently costing money seems unnecessary
considering THE ONLY THING ANYONE HAS HEARD ABOUT SINCE THE ELECTION IS THAT
CRANLEY PLANS TO STOP THE STREETCAR. It does nicely nudge readers toward the
interactive forum they can click on and publicly lament how
people who don’t pay taxes have too much control over our city.

(Additional professional advice: Consider changing the
subhed from, “It'll be costly to stop, and costly to go on, but work continues
until Cranley and new council officially stop it” to something that doesn’t
sound like you have no idea what the fuck is going on.)

For context, the following are the streetcar stories
currently presented on the website homepages of local media that have more
talent/integrity than The Enquirer:

CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BONUS: 700WLW even has a relevant piece of
streetcar news, although you have to scroll past a video of Russian kids
wrestling a bear and an article suggesting that Obamacare is the president’s
Katrina (whatever that means): Feds: Use money for streetcar or pay it back.

With all precincts reporting, Cranley handily defeated Qualls 58-42 percent. Cranley ran largely on his opposition to the $133 million streetcar, while Qualls promised to expand the project.

Voters also elected three non-incumbents to City Council: Democrat David Mann, Charterite Kevin Flynn and Republican Amy Murray. The three non-incumbents oppose the streetcar project, which means re-elected Democrat P.G. Sittenfeld, Republican Charlie Winburn and Independent Chris Smitherman are now part of a 6-3 majority on council that opposes the project.

It’s unclear if the newly elected council and mayor will stop current construction on the streetcar once they take power in December, given concerns about contractual obligations and sunk costs that could make canceling the project costly in terms of dollars and Cincinnati’s business reputation.

But Cranley and the six anti-streetcar elects on City Council vested much of their campaigns on their opposition to the project, which they claim is too costly and the wrong priority for Cincinnati.

Supporters argue the project will produce a three-to-one return on investment — an estimate derived from a 2007 study from consulting firm HDR and a follow-up assessment to the HDR study from the University of Cincinnati.

City Council’s new make-up will be five Democrats, two Republicans, one Charterite and one Independent. That’s a shift from the current make-up of seven Democrats, one Republican and one Independent.

The new council slate will be the first to take up four-year terms following a city charter amendment voters approved in 2012.

Sittenfeld also landed a huge win and easily topped the City Council race with 10,000 more votes than Winburn, who, at 27,000 votes, got the second most ballots cast in his favor out of the nine council victors. Sittenfeld netted nearly 5,000 more votes than Cranley did in the mayoral race, although Cranley ran in a head-to-head race with Qualls while Sittenfeld was one of nine candidates voters could pick out of a pool of 21.

Citywide voter turnout ended up at roughly 28 percent.

Other election results:

Cincinnati voters rejected Issue 4, which would have privatized Cincinnati’s pension system for city employees, in a 78-22 percent vote.

In the Cincinnati Public Schools board election, Melanie Bates, Ericka Copeland-Dansby, Elisa Hoffman and Daniel Minera won the four seats up for grabs.

Hamilton County voters overwhelmingly approved property tax levies for the Cincinnati Zoo and Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County in 80-20 percent votes.

Cincinnati native Whitney Holwadel Smith, born April 10, 1984, died April 4, 2009, of suicide at the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Terre Haute. Smith had reportedly been depressed and emotionally broken after being forced to spend more than a year in the Segregated Housing Unit (The Hole).

Smith grew up in Mount Lookout and was sentenced to the Dayton Correctional Institution as an adult for his first robbery at 17-years-old. From 2002-2003 he wrote a regular column on prison life and his struggle to rehabilitate for XRay Cincinnati Magazine which I published. Smith was released in 2005 and convicted the same year for bank robbery. He was sentenced to more than six years at the USP Terre Haute. Smith's blog, Super Friends: The life and times of an inmate at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute has been published since November 2008. It was notable for being an unusually lucid and frank account of prison life. Smith's writing was variously acerbic, humorous, brutal and hopeful.

After his 2005 release, Whit lived in my home. He was a kind young man with a good heart and a broken one, too. He was my friend. After many discussions in both the outside world and behind barbed wire fences, I still don't fully understand why he committed the crimes he did. He walked through his short life with a corrupted mind that led him to poor choices again and again. His choices to be a criminal were his and he deserved his time, but I also earnestly believe he was let down by a justice system that should help offenders rehabilitate — that is to restore dignity — rather than beat them down into someone more jaded and injured than they were at the time of their arrest. My 2005 CityBeat articlePrisoners Forever articlewas inspired by Whit's journey through the prison system.

A memorial for Whit will be held on Wednesday, April 8 at 2:30 p.m. at the Civic Garden Center, 2715 Reading Rd. at 2:30 p.m. It is open to the public.

If you would like to make a donation in
Whit's memory, the family has asked that those be made to Circle Tail, an animal
shelter in Loveland, Ohio. Whit had recently told his father, Jeff Smith, that he hoped to
volunteer at an animal shelter when he got out of prison. Circle Tail works with a several prisons to foster their shelter animals before they are placed in a permanent home.

You poison one little
French farmer and all hell breaks loose. Giant chemical-maker
Monsanto yesterday announced it plans to appeal a Monday ruling that one
of its herbicides in 2004 poisoned French farmer Paul Francois, who
says inhaling a Monsanto weedkiller led to “memory loss, headaches
and stammering”(coincidentally, these are the same symptoms of the
accidental hangover™).

In addition to the French
farmer being pissed enough at the company for giving him a hangover
when he was trying to work his farmland, there are about a million
other people officially declaring themselves as against Monsanto via
“Millions Against Monsanto,” an organic consumers association
that campaigns for “health, justice, sustainability, peace and
democracy.” If you accept the possibility of Monsanto obstructing
even a majority of these five concepts, it’s easy to believe the
company has enemies from a lot of different backgrounds.

That’s why Monday’s
ruling by a French court finding Monsanto legally responsible for
poisoning Francois and ordering it to compensate him has enlivened a
bunch of angry activists.

Millions Against
Monsanto offers a wealth of content documenting the agricultural
biotechnology corporation’s government ties, tendencies to take
small dairies to court, refusal to compensate veterans for Agent
Orange and getting their nasty chemicals in normal people’s water
supplies. (Wikipedia is hilariously filled with references to things like dumping toxic waste in the UK, Indonesian bribing convictions and fines for false advertising.) Even 'ol boy Obama has gotten caught up in the mix with
charts like this one circulating on Facebook:

The latest news out of
Millions Against Monsanto is the moving forward of a California ballot initiative to
require mandatory GMO labeling that polls show has 80 percent
support. According to the site:

"A win for the California
Initiative would be a huge blow to biotech and a huge victory for
food activists. Monsanto and their minions have billions invested in
GMOs and they are willing to spend millions to defeat this
initiative. California is the 8th largest economy in the world.
Labeling laws in CA will affect packaging and ingredient decisions
nation-wide. The bill has been carefully written to ensure that it
will not increase costs to consumers or producers."

Back in France, our
friendly farmer will have to wait a while for whatever compensation
poisoning amounts to, as Monsanto says it will appeal the ruling.
According to The Washington Post: Monsanto spokesman Tom Helscher
says the company does not think there is “sufficient data” to
demonstrate a link between the use of Lasso herbicide and the
symptoms Francois reported.

"We do not agree any
injury was accidentally caused nor did the company intentionally
permit injury," Helscher said. "Lasso herbicide was ... successfully used by farmers
on millions of hectares around the world."

A group that supports preserving the historic Gamble House in Westwood is angry that Cincinnati building inspectors aren't enforcing the law at the property, which is allowing heavy rainfall to damage it while a court battle drags on about whether to save the mansion from demolition.

Bob Prokop, of Save the Historic Gamble Estate Now, said the city's inaction about securing the house contradicts what a building inspector told him would be done at the property in an email from last spring.

Former Congresswoman to be in town on gun-violence prevention tour

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
will appear in next week's Northside 4th of July Parade as part of a
nationwide tour supporting responsible gun legislation, according to parade organizers.

Giffords was scheduled to be in town on
July 4 as part of a gun-violence prevention tour called The Rights and Responsibilities Tour, and her team
reached out to the Northside parade organizers with an interest in participating in something celebratory, according to Northside 4th of
July Parade co-coordinator Ollie Kroner.

The former Congresswoman from
suburban Arizona was the victim of an assassination attempt in
Tucson, Ariz., Jan. 8, 2011 that killed six and injured 12. Giffords
was shot in the head but has recovered some of her ability to walk,
speak and write. She resigned from Congress about a year after the
shooting and has focused on gun-safety measures. Giffords and her
husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, founded the Americans for Responsible
Solutions political action committee, which advocates for candidates
that support responsible policies that protect both the public and
the rights of gun owners.

The Rights and Responsibilities
Tour began in Nevada July 1 and was scheduled to make stops in
Alaska, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota and Ohio.

Northside parade co-coordinator Chuck Brown says he was contacted by a Democratic Party representative who then offered the Northside parade as an option for Giffords to make a public appearance while she's in town. Brown says the plan is to put together a press conference in the parade staging area for Giffords' cause.

"This is an amazing thing," Brown says. "We feel honored, and I think most people in Northside — I can't speak for everyone — but in general I think we're pretty empathetic to her message. Most people I know would agree that there must be something
done about gun violence and she's a figure that I think people can
really identify with. I think she is an inspiration for
a lot of people in the way that she's willing to be visible and take a
stand."

In a statement kicking off the tour, Giffords' husband, Kelly, said: “I’ve been around guns my whole life, and I know that
as an American, my right to own a firearm goes hand in hand with my
obligation to be a responsible gun owner and to do my part to make
sure guns don’t fall into the hands of criminals or dangerously
mentally ill people. Gabby and I are excited to hit the road this
summer and meet so many of the great Americans who are standing with
us to fight for common-sense solutions to prevent gun violence and
protect our rights.”

State agency says Ohio will focus on lowering recidivism

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections
(ODRC) on Tuesday said it will not seek further privatization of state prisons. The announcement was made less than a week after CityBeat published an in-depth story detailing the various problems posed by privatizing prisons (“Liberty for Sale,” issue of Sept. 19).

“We're going to stay the course on those (sentencing reforms) and I think privatizing
additional prisons would take away from that reform effort that we have,
so I'm not anticipating privatizing any more prisons in the short term
here,” he told Gongwer.

Ohio became the first state to sell one of its own prisons to a
private prison company in 2011. The ACLU criticized the move for its potential conflict of interest. The organization argued that the profit goal of private prison
companies, which make money by holding as many prisoners as possible,
fundamentally contradicts the public policy goal of keeping inmate reentry into
prisons and prison populations as low as possible.

In his comments to Gongwer, Mohr said the state will now focus on lowering recidivism, not increasing privatization: “I don't think you can go through upheaval of a system and continue to
put prioritization on reform at the same time. I think if we
were to re-engage again on privatization of prisons, then we're going to
take the eye off the ball a little bit, and I think we're making great
progress. It's a matter of focus.”

In the past,
the ACLU and other groups criticized Mohr's previous ties to private
prison companies — particularly his private work for Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) before he became the director for ODRC. CCA
in 2011 became the first private company in Ohio's history to purchase a state prison. The connection presents another possible conflict of interest, and it is only one of the many connections between CCA and Gov. John Kasich's administration.

Mike Brickner, ACLU researcher and director of communications and public policy, praised ODRC's decision in a statement: “Despite
millions spent by private companies trying to convince policy makers
and local governments otherwise, numerous studies have shown private
prisons put their own profit ahead of good public policy. ODRC is wise
to see that the privatization model distracts from their important
efforts to shrink inmate population and reduce recidivism.”

But Brickner also made further demands from the state: “ODRC
should go a step further by making a commitment not to privatize
additional prison services such as food and medical care. Arguments for
privatizing these services use the same faulty logic as the arguments
for privatizing entire prisons.”

CityBeat was not able to immediately reach ODRC for comment on Mohr’s announcement. This story will be updated if
comments become available.

During the course of researching and reporting last week's story on prison privatization in Ohio, CityBeat found the ODRC to be dismissive of our interest in speaking with Mohr or a spokesperson about private prisons. During two weeks of correspondence, CityBeat received numerous excuses as to why the ODRC couldn't grant an interview and eventually received two emails with the exact same statement — one from ODRC, a state
department, and one from Management and Training Corporation, a private
company that manages prisons in Ohio. The statement added a strange twist to the already-suspicious fact that the ODRC didn't want to talk about its prison privatization plan with the media. A full explanation of the issues ODRC posed to the reporting process can be found in the editor's note at the end of the cover story.

You've heard of prodigies who are offered full rides and stipends to attend universities, offered big money in hopes they'll become a golden poster child for the success of the school; a face of intelligentsia, promise and scholarship.

That's not the case for the the 170-some students at Dohn Community High School, who, as of Monday, are getting paid just for showing up to class. A new incentive program rewards seniors who arrive on time every day, stay productive and out of trouble with $25 Visa cards every week, while underclassmen can earn $10. When a student receives a gift card, $5 will be put into a savings account to be paid out upon graduation. Dohn, which is a charter school in Walnut Hills, is comprised of mostly drop-out recovery students from other schools and other at-risk students from nearby communities.